


match your weakness with a name

by gay_r1ghts



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Chronic Pain, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Panic Attacks, Stimming, Suicidal Thoughts, autistic!house, just in case im tagging everything, this is me projecting lol, very short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22809619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_r1ghts/pseuds/gay_r1ghts
Summary: House tends to overthink.
Relationships: Greg House & James Wilson, Greg House/James Wilson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 159





	match your weakness with a name

House tapped his cane on the ground, softly, in little patterns of three, three, three. Three, three, three. Three, three, three.

He stared at his cracked open bedroom door. Not his, he reminded himself— his and Wilson’s. He could hear Wilson’s soft huffs of breath in the otherwise silent flat, and House wished that he were able to fall asleep easily next to him. 

His breathing was heavy. His shoulders shook with the effort of filling his lungs over, over, over again. House wanted to stop it all. He wanted the rushing of his blood to stop.  
‘I don’t want to die,’ he reminded himself. He just wanted this thing inside of him to stop and let him sleep.

There was something so uncanny about it. The knowledge that those things would never be taken down. That there were groups of people, little nests of them planted around the world, people that he would never meet, that knew. Those people, hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe more, had seen House vulnerable. 

Three, three, three. His taps were now accompanied by little flaps of his free hand. His fingers twisted in comforting ways, the motion rocking him further from the panic that had burned through his mind earlier.  
He never meant to think, think, think about it. It was always something that snuck up on him, always a spark ignited by something insignificant. This time, it was a court case he had glimpsed while flipping through TV channels. Nothing more than a half minute, a glimpse of a headline in gaudy red and yellow sliding across the screen, and House’s brain decided that there would be no sleep that night. It had lurked in the back of his mind, waiting for the quiet of nighttime to creep, creep, creep out. 

Wilson awoke to the sound of House thinking. The taps of his cane, the flicking of fingers, the creaking sound of House rocking back and forth on the sofa. For a moment, Wilson considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but then he noticed the time. 3:42 am: too late for him to have stayed up this late, too early for his pain meds to have worn off through the night. With a sigh, Wilson shrugged off the duvet.  
He shuffled down the hallway, socks sliding quietly over the hardwood floors, and ran his fingers through his messy hair. His voice was rough with sleep.  
“House? What are you doing?” He took in the sight of his husband, who looked pale and unfocused. House didn’t look at him. The rocking and flapping continued.  
“Is it your leg? I can draw you a bath, or—”  
“No.”  
Wilson stared for a moment, before gently perching on the couch. “Are you… can you talk?”  
Wilson held his breath, hoping that he would at least get a reply. He joked sometimes that he had spent months learning ASL just for House to never use it himself.  
House shook his head.  
“No? No, not your leg, or no, not you don’t need the bath?”  
House danced his index and middle fingers on the same finger of the other hand. Neither.  
“So it’s not your leg. Are you sick?”  
“...no.”  
Something else then. A, a nightmare?”  
“Sort of.”  
“Something kind of like that, then. Something related.”  
House nodded. Wilson knew better than to ask for eye contact, knew that it would be unfair to ask for something that would make him so uncomfortable, so he settled for gently offering his hands, palms facing towards House.  
House gently placed his hands against Wilson’s, and for a moment they interlocked fingers and pushed against each other, the pressure flowing into House like warm water.  
All too soon, Wilson pulled back. “I’m gonna get some coffee started, I think.”  
Good idea, House signed. Good idea. Good idea.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first published fic plz be nice ;w; based on some very personal experiences-- yes i'm projecting, no i won't stop


End file.
